Has it become impossible to follow Assassin's Creed?

Gaming News Has it become impossible to follow Assassin’s Creed?

Published on 02/26/2023 at 12:30 p.m

As we approach Assassin’s Creed Mirage, let’s take stock of the dense and very complex story of the Assassin’s Creed universe, so dense and complex that we wonder if it’s not a bit too much! This new episode of JV Lore explores in detail the world of Ubisoft’s now legendary saga.

Summary

Let’s start at the beginning.
This is where it gets complicated.

Let’s start at the beginning.

The series of Assassin’s Creed allows us to trace the history of the ancient rivalry between the Order of the Templars and the Brotherhood of Assassins, who have been fighting for centuries to obtain the Objects of Eden, artifacts that allow, among other things, control of the world or its release. To follow this story The games let us play both in the present and in the past, and to make the connection between these two eras, the character uses the animus or the helix, machines that allow access to the genetic memory of his distant ancestors and their memories relive.

As a result, on the one hand we watch the battle between Templars and Assassins as it unfolds in the present, with two sides using the machines to hope to find the objects of Eden using the memories of the past, and on the other hand, the same battle , as it took place at different times, from ancient Egypt to the Crusades, through the French Revolution or the golden age of piracy and the Italian Renaissance, etc. The past allows us to discover how sacred objects were found, used, hidden and how they were influenced the course of history.

Well, that was the outline (and that’s still a lot of lines). To go into detail, the first half of the Assassin’s Creed games (from Assassin’s Creed 1 until Assassin’s Creed III) lets us follow Desmond Miles, a former assassin turned bartender. He is trying to escape his origins when he is captured by Abstergo, a multinational science technology company. He will work for them until he finds out that the company is secretly run by the Templars. He will then join the cause of the Brotherhood of Assassins to find the objects of Eden. From Assassin’s Creed IV until Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, we follow the journey of a stranger (or a stranger, her gender is not specified) who sometimes works for Abstergo and the Templar Order, sometimes for the Assassins. Finally, in the last three games of the series, we follow Layla, a former Abstergo employee who tries to dig up Eden’s objects for the Brotherhood of Assassins. Across twelve (soon to be thirteen) canon games (24 if we count derivative games), Ubisoft has built a very rich story for us, where time and story come together metaphorically and poetically.

The present uses the past to build a future, while the past lives its present to see its future. The present is confronted with memories of the past and the past with visions of the future, with both epochs constantly influencing each other. Without forgetting that the concept of animus and helix is an obvious and ingenious mise en abyme of the video game. You’re playing a game within a game, and the research work done in the past isn’t all that different from that of a game developer. If you want more details, you can find our episode of JV Lore at the beginning of the article.

This is where it gets complicated.

Ubisoft offered us a very dense universe with very endearing characters (especially Ezio and Desmond). It’s quite exciting to travel through the different eras and see how the studio rewrote history to depict historical figures in the conflict between Assassins and Templars. Each game is extremely well documented and includes videos, text archives, images, audio and more.

However, one point in Assassin’s Creed lore poses a problem: the history of the progenitors and ancient civilization. In short, the progenitors created mankind and the objects of Eden and are the origin of the mysteries of Atlantis and all that surrounds religion in our world. They are divine beings who became extinct after a human rebellion led by Adam and Eve. This story is shrouded in mystery and reveals the origin of the universe. This rewriting of biblical history is gradually being revealed to us through the licensed games. And that’s where the shoe pinches, because it makes the Assassin’s Creed universe completely hermetic: unless you’re a fan of Assassin’s Creed to play the entire saga from the beginning, it’s impossible for a casual gamer to understand the universe or it to enter differently than starting from the beginning, and even connoisseurs sometimes find it difficult to follow, since the elements that are brought into each game are numerous. This presents an obvious problem considering that the twelve games of the saga were developed for different consoles and the purchase of the set is a significant price today…